this moment

Joining SouleMama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

at least there are these

I've been trying to blog since the middle of last week.  Pretty sure these pictures were started in a draft last Wednesday.

Silly me to think that with a picked up house, a sleeping toddler, a fresh cup of coffee and a small window of time this afternoon, I could actually write some words to go along with them.

You will notice there are no more words. 

this moment

Joining SouleMama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

her notebook

In her notebook:

wind 
wind
wind
Mom
nature center
camera
bathroom
leaves
trees
snake
skin
button
open 
close
jump
stinky
ice 
snow

Those were the important words Lovey wrote during our recent afternoon together.  The words that made her repeatedly pause, take her notebook out of her coat pocket, take her pencil out of her other coat pocket, and write.

Thankfully I had a notebook of my own and could jot them down too...lest I forgot.

And I've been forgetful.

It seems I'd forgotten how good - how very very good - it is to spend time one-on-one with my littles. 

The activity can be embraced in a slow, deliberate, kid-led way without my ever having to turn my attention away.

I get to really look, really listen.

I get to soak up the uniqueness of that child, a sweet reminder of how very lucky I am to be Mama. 

When I do spend that time, I fluctuate between marveling at the amazing person my child is becoming and missing the child that they've outgrown.  Aware of the imperative specialness of slowing down in that moment.

Not wanting to forget.

this moment {just like the big kids}

Joining SouleMama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

but there's this

(Family selfie, December 2013)

If you are a regular reader you know quite well that I have been a less than regular blogger lately.

We are eight days into the new year and nary a post recalling the best of last year, or the hopes for this one.  Not a mention of my word for 2014.  There was no holiday-wrap up, no New Year's wishes.  There was no show of elving done (very little, by the way.)  Simply none of this.

Six of my last ten posts have been a this moment.  Really folks, it is a bit of cut and paste, swap out the picture, link to SouleMama.  Badda boom, badda bing.  Three minutes from start to publish.  Not so much blogging, as it is making sure people know I am still upright.

So, about last year.  It was a year that knocked my socks off.  I've written a couple times about the amazing challenge of it all.  But then I stopped writing.  Mostly because this space isn't about overwhelm and exhaustion, though I have always included bits of my everyday that show the flawed humanness of becoming claudine.  This space is about beauty and seeking a creative life and making happy and parenting with intention and being the glass-half-full gal that I have always been.  Always.

Yet, in my not writing, I've missed much.  I've missed this space.  I've missed the goodness I recognize when I reflect and share here.  I've missed you.  

So I am making my way back.  Just as I am making my way back to the beauty, and seeking a creative life, and making happy, and parenting with intention, and being the glass-half-full gal that I am.

I still don't plan on writing any review of 2013.  The holidays are past.  I've yet to even think about my guiding word for 2014.

But there's this.

In October our family planted a Peace Pole in our woods.  Our woods.  Space that my honey and I have sacrificed so much to get.  Woods that, every day, become more sacred to us.  And in this special place we claimed peace.  Peace.

On that glorious fall day, we gathered family and friends (and kids - oh the kids!) to plant this pole with us.  Each person had the opportunity to add their own written intention to be planted with the pole.  Anyone who wanted, added a scoop of dirt to hold the pole in place.  Prayers were prayed.  Candles were lit.  Songs were sung.  May Peace Prevail on Earth was declared in Slovak, German, Greek and English -- each language representing part of our heritage.  Buddy even made a bracelet to be raffled.  Such a special event has to have a raffle he declared.  (Oh he is my son indeed.)

And we were filled.  Filled to overflowing with the goodness of these people in our lives, with the beauty of the natural world around us, with the blessings of our children and the humbling responsibility of being their parents, with gratitude for our new home, with the calling to be peaceful.

Filled.  Even as I sit here months later, with tears, trying to describe feelings that aren't fully describable. 

Every time I look out my kitchen window I see the very top of that pole.  (Right now it has a little cap of snow atop it.)  We were quite intentional in placing it in that exact spot.  By my just seeing the very top of it, I would be beckoned outside, into the woods, to see the whole pole.  Brilliant.  Draw me outside, down some steps, into the natural world.  Get fresh air, be reminded of the call to peace, be filled with the goodness of that October day.

(Most pictures taken by my sister Danielle and my dear friend Rachel.)

On New Year's Eve, before our pj festivities of movie-watching and popcorn-eating, I put on my boots and scarf and slipped out the back of the house into the dark.  I made my now-familiar walk to the Peace Pole, knowing how many steps down and what spots to go around even as they are covered in snow and darkness.

At the base of the Peace Pole I placed a lit candle, along with my prayer.  A prayer of gratitude for 2013, even the socks-knocking-off parts.  A prayer of hope and peace for 2014.  I grasped the pole tightly with my hands for a moment.

Then quietly headed back to our warm house, and my family waiting.

this moment

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

this moment {on Christmas Eve}

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

this moment {famil-ie}

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

And stop by here for a great giveaway from my dear blogger friend Lady Cordelia!

little by little

Something I didn't think about when buying a new house was where I could hide Christmas presents.  It never crossed my mind.  Even if it had, it likely wouldn't have been a consideration in buying this house.  But it seems important now.  Mostly because I don't have a good hiding spot for Christmas presents.  Our old house had a basement with perfect nooks and crannies, an attic that the kids didn't venture into.  My gift-hiding was almost an art, down to the tubs I sorted and stored them in once wrapped, for easy and quiet (oh so important with growing littles!) transfer to the stockings and tree on Christmas Eve night.

But this new house?  No nooks or crannies.  No tubs.  No gift-hiding art.

So I'm trying to scheme a new way.  Just one of many things I didn't think of.  Until now.  Where should we place the Christmas tree?  Did we toss the wreath when we moved?  Where oh where did I pack the Santa bags?  Can we unpack all of the boxes stacked in front of the fireplace in time for Santa to make his entrance?

So much new.  I've come to realize that this move -- that began in earnest in February -- really is not yet done.  That each season, each holiday, each transition brings a re-imagining of what to do, how to do it, with whom to do it.  Where to hid the darn presents.  No wonder I'm tired.

But little by little I am unpacking how this season, how this holiday, will be.  At least for this year.  I am letting the new of our lives make it okay for it be new, and different, not holding it up to what came before, but instead making it the holiday for now.

Each day, little by little, a bit more decorates our space.  The familiar Christmas books, Santa bags on bedroom doorknobs, and small tree, brought out for St. Nicholas Day, to light the hallway. 

The new too.  A snowflake tree in the kitchen -- a tree in the kitchen, well I never!  A vintage embroidered table runner for a tree skirt in the sun-room.  And, easily my favorite, winter prints by the amazing Phoeble Wahl in a spot I get to see and enjoy them dozens of times a day.

And enjoy them I will. 

As I will all of the new, and the comfortable familiar, in this season.

lessons at play

"Believe in yourself."

"We are getting stronger by doing hard things."

"You can do lots of things when you are strong."

I'm listening to Munchkin and Lovey play right now.  Those two.  They come up with the messiest and craziest adventures.  They've been known to transform a room quite handily.  But it seems that they also are able to come up with some pretty good life lessons through that mess and adventure.

"Believe in yourself."

"We are getting stronger by doing hard things."

"You can do lots of things when you are strong."

I'm listening.

It's been a rough couple of 3 weeks.  The kind of rough that, when dismantled, seems doable, seems manageable, seems mostly inconvenient.  But collectively is exhausting and overwhelming and paralyzing.

I'm trying to be gentle with myself (and others) right now. Which is hard to do when the rough demands so very much of my attention and energy.  Hard to do this time of year when cheerfulness and joy are expected, when thanks is prescribed.  And I like joy and cheerfulness and gratitude, so I am gently and slowly wading through the hard things to get to them.

And apparently I will be stronger for having done so.

And believing in myself is a good way to go.

And don't mind the mess along the way, every good adventure has some.